During the two years preceding the launch of CAPPA, Per Capita completed extensive research work on longevity and its implications for Australia’s future. The central findings are that an extra 25 years of high-quality life expectancy over the last century constitute an unquestionably positive development for both individuals and society, and that Australia should embrace longer lives as a remarkable opportunity rather that a grave challenge.

Per Capita then established the Centre for Applied Policy in Positive Ageing (CAPPA) to develop and trial specific policy initiatives that embrace this opportunity. It is Per Capita’s ageing policy “do tank”

With its dual focus on applied policy and positive ageing, CAPPA is unique in the Australian think tank landscape.

CAPPA and Systemic Change

Policy innovation has the best chance of being self-sustaining if it is applied policy, undertaken in collaboration and is community-driven. Applied policy research is outcomes focused, seeks systemic long-term change and is multi-disciplinary in its approach. This is distinguishable from both academic research, which is highly specialised, empirical and theoretical, and government approaches to policy which are typically risk averse and constrained by resources. Applied policy research fills the gap on the research spectrum between these two approaches to policy.

CAPPA’s function is to develop policy proposals and social innovations, and to test them through pilot programs so that the successes are adopted by government and the community.

These pilot programs allow us to develop and test projects and policy ideas on a micro-scale, to ensure sustainability and scalability.

Through CAPPA we are able to effect enduring system change through capacity building in applied policy and investment in these pilots.

Money For Jam

Women – especially single women – often don’t have enough income in retirement and the policy responses to this situation are few.

According to a recent report commissioned by the Lord Mayor’s Charitable foundation, one third of women in Australia over the age of sixty live in permanent income poverty.

A shift in the policy levers is necessary; so too are other complementary measures. One of these measures is to boost women’s retirement incomes through enterprise.

Through its community consultations conducted for the Blueprint for an Ageing Australia, Per Capita found that there was strong support for the idea of enterprise among older Australians. Specifically, the feedback we received was that older Australians who had retired or were moving towards retirement were interested in starting their owns businesses, both as a means of generating income but also to use their skills and experience in a meaningful way that combined with their interests.

Money for Jam

Money For Jam (MFJ) is a program that stimulates and facilitates micro-enterprise development among women aged 50+ who have insubstantial private savings and are at risk of poverty. The project uses the principles of co-design: this involves asking women what’s missing from available services and what they need in order to achieve greater financial security, rather than telling them what they need as a starting point.

CAPPA and the co-design women have recently completed the co-design stage. MFJ will now move into the testing phase before it can be rolled out more broadly.

The components of the MFJ facility are designed in such a way that it gives older women practical support to get to microenterprise start up. The design of the facility is based on the principles of:

Action over plans: trial and error to test small enterprise ideas and see how they evolve

Starting small, in order to fit in with the women’s complex lives

Underpinned by a strong wellbeing component and a peer-to-peer support system to build confidence

In line with their values, time constraints and priorities

Using a strengths based approach, taking into consideration each individual’s barriers.

Money for Jam emerged from Per Capita’s existing body of research on retirement income adequacy, and has been co-designed with The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI), and in collaboration with Women’s Housing Limited.